


haircut

by i_really_hate_corn



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Crying, Family Angst, Gen, He is so sincere that it pains me, Mentions of War, Not Beta Read, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, References to Ursa's treatment of Azula, Ursa is a bad good parent, Ursa's Bad Parenting, Young Zuko, Zuko Angst, Zuko deserves the world, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_really_hate_corn/pseuds/i_really_hate_corn
Summary: Zuko mouths off in front of Ursa, and Ursa is unhappy with him.TL;DR: Ursa was a good mom 90% of the time, but what about the other 10%?
Relationships: Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 248





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**Author's Note:**

> Please look at end notes for trigger warning

Zuko cringed as his mother approached him with the scissors. He stumbled out of his chair and rushed to move away. Years of being around Azula and Father fueled his impulse to run away already in hard drive. He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. Zuko hated the look on his mother’s face. Where a gentle smile should have been, an angry scowl took its place. The gentle creases and worry lines on his mother’s faces, wrinkles that Zuko later realized were there after years of stress from being around Father, contorted and deepened to twist Ursa’s face.

Ursa was not a woman that easily showed emotion, nonetheless her negative ones. A trait that both frustrated and endeared her upon the courts. Zuko himself rarely saw his mother angry, and the anger was almost never directed toward him. Except now it was.

“Zuko, sit down _right now._ ” Ursa hissed. Zuko shook his head, not trusting his voice to not quiver. He would not go near her when she acted like this. He could not go near her when she acted like this.

News from Ba Sing Se always made Ursa act strangely, not that Zuko let that deter him. The letter from Lu Ten that Zuko had received was full of comments on how army rations were bad and how dearly he missed his cousin and how the final battle to overtake Ba Sing Se was just on the horizon. Lu Ten was always a great storyteller, better than Zuko. Not that that was a hard thing to do. Almost everyone was better than Zuko. Zuko loved those letters. It made him miss his cousin more than usual. He loved learning about his cousin’s experiences all the same.

For some reason, Mother was not happy with the letter Uncle had sent her and Father. Zuko could not fathom why Mother would not enjoy a letter from Uncle. Maybe she was not fond of his comments on tea? Although Zuko did not spend as much time around Uncle as he did with Lu Ten, he always admired him.

Zuko remembered crowding his mother and pulling gently at her skirts. When he had asked her why she was not happy the war would be over. The smile that Mother had given Zuko confused him and scared him. Her eyes looked like Father’s when he smiled. Cold.

It was smile she would give Azula, not him.

The smile was only for a second. Quick enough that Zuko almost thought it was his imagination. _Almost_.

Zuko did not understand why his Mother was treating him like this. She had always been on his side. She was on his side. It was just different now. Mother was always back to being the gentle, bestest mom in the entire planet by the next day. It was only for those few hours that seemed to stretch on for days that Zuko felt so small. Zuko didn’t understand why his mother was treating him like this, but he knew it was his fault.

_I was born lucky, Zuzu. You were lucky to be born._

“Zuko, if you do not come over here you are going to regret it.” Ursa said, her voice steely and easily cutting him away from his thoughts of the past.

Zuko closed his eyes. If he closed his eyes, he couldn’t see how angry his mother was. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend nothing was wrong. The trembling of his hands and the stillness of the room. He clenched his fists to calm the trembling of his hands. He was used to this kind of treatment from Azula and Father, so why was it so hard to be treated like this by Mother. Zuko wished he wasn’t so weak.

Zuko shook his head.

Again.

The clatter of the scissors being thrown onto the floor was deafening. Golden eyes flew open to make eye contact with the unusually dull eyes of his mother. Zuko tensed as the soft clatter of Ursa’s slippers moved closer. He puffed his chest and rose his chin. An act that got him in trouble with his Father but put an exasperated smile on his mother’s face. Ursa was not smiling.

As the steps grew closer, and the tremors wracking Zuko’s body grew stronger, Zuko reminded himself of what his mother always told him.

_Never give up without a fight._

The first time Zuko’s mother was exceedingly angry with him was over his complaints about the sea prunes the royal family had received from the past Southern Raid. Zuko did not understand the gravity of the Southern Raids. All he knew was the Grandfather was ensuring that no Water Tribe savages got in the way of the Fire Nation spreading its light. Its fire. He had complained about how he disliked the tart taste of the fruit. He then declared that all Fire Nation fruit was superior to that of the backwater Water Tribes.

His mother had not been pleased.

The fight and the repercussions that followed lasted three hours. At the end of the lecture, Zuko laid in his bed, trembling and wiping his tears. Mother never explained why she was so angry with him. He had felt so alone. Mother was the only one who was ever on Zuko’s side. She was Zuko’s best friend. Azula had Mai, Ty Lee, and Father. All Zuko had was Mother.

His mother had slipped into his room. Zuko, still trembling, had hidden under his covers. He had bit his fist to quiet his cries. When his mother had sat on the bed, Zuko had tensed.

She then quietly pleaded with Zuko. Zuko had never heard her sound so sad. When he peaked his head over the covers, she could see the dried tear tracks that matched his own. Zuko remembered launching himself at his mother and the two cried and hugged each other until dawn.

It was that night the Ursa made Zuko promise to her that no matter how angry she was with him that he never let his mother hurt him.

_Never give up without a fight._

Ursa’s cold hand gripped the back of Zuko’s neck. All memories of his gentle, sensitive Mother telling him to fight drained out of him.

“Mother, what did I do?” Zuko asked, trying to piece together why she was gripping him like this. The grip on his neck loosened slightly then gained more strength than it did previously.

“You know exactly what you did.” Ursa whispered, brushing the scissors against Zuko’s neck, dangerously close to his hair.

The cold shook Zuko out of his reverie, and the struggle for the upper hand began. Zuko struggled to get out of his mother’s grip. He didn’t want Ursa to do something she would regret later on, so Zuko fought back. Zuko thrashed about, doing his best to not bump into his Mom.

Only a monster would hurt their mother.

Zuko didn’t want to be a monster.

In Zuko’s struggles to break, Ursa dropped the scissors. The loud clang interrupting Zuko’s unconscious pleas to be let go and Ursa’s stoicism to said pleas.

Her grip loosened. Zuko broke free. He ran out of the room, scrambling towards his own chambers. He didn’t turn back. Not even when she screamed for him to come back. Only once he reached his room did he slow down.

He crawled under his covers and curled up. He moved his arms to cover his head and neck. When his hands grazed his neck. There was something wet.

A shiver wracked Zuko’s body. He carefully moved his hand away from his neck to see what it had touched. His room was dark, but there was enough light from the lanterns outside for him to see the darker hue of his blood on his hands. It wasn’t too much. Not enough for it to be anything serious.

It wasn’t like Ursa did it on purpose. It was Zuko’s fault for struggling. Zuko took solace in that. Things being his fault was a familiar concept. Ursa hurting him on purpose was not.

Zuko slowly brought his arm back up to cradle his head, careful to not irritate his new injury. He closed his eyes and willed the trembling to go away, but it didn’t. His leftover adrenaline from earlier continued to wrack his body in painful trembles. Zuko closed his eyes tighter, willing the tears to stay away. They didn’t though, when do they ever.

Zuko didn’t know how long he had been crying. He was so tired, but the shaking wouldn’t stop nor his tears nor his stuttered breathing. The door slowly creaked open. Zuko’s shaking paused for a moment then came back even harder. He scrambled to hide himself even farther beneath the covers.

“Oh Zuko,” Ursa said, tone filled with pain and regret. She rushed over to the bed, sitting on the edge. She watched as the small figure underneath the covers continued to shake. She choked back a sob. He was so tiny. How could she do this to him?

She listened to his sobbing and stuttered breathing. The guilt was crashing over her like waves.

“I am so sorry, Zuko.” Ursa whispered, her voice thick with emotion. The bundle under the covers paused. Then a bundle pounced toward Ursa, flying into her arms. Zuko was practically wailing, doing his best to get as physically close as possible to Ursa.

Ursa returned this with great fervor, pulling her son into her lap. She carefully brushed his hair. New waves of regret poured over her at his small flinch when she did so. She was a monster.

Never again. If she ever got angry again, she would not take it out on Zuko.

“I love you so much, Zuko.” Ursa choked out. This was her baby, the light of her life, and he was sobbing uncontrollably in her arms because of _her._

“I love you too, Mommy.” Zuko said thickly, just grateful his mom was back to normal. His tears continued to fall but more out of relief than anything else. Ursa continued to brush her fingers through his hair, quietly murmuring to him as he mumbled into her dress.

She froze when she felt something slightly damp at the base of his neck. Zuko’s small whimper did nothing to placate her. Ursa’s hand trembled as she brought it out into the light. There were small dots of blood residue on the tips of her fingers.

It took all of her willpower not to scream. What had she done to her baby? Ursa gently shifted Zuko so she could see the nape of his neck. The wound looked superficial, but the fact it was there to begin with was unforgivable. Ursa held Zuko even tighter than before, trying to quiet her sobs. Zuko’s small murmurs filled with concern not helping her feelings of grief.

She did this to her son who loved to feed turtleducks. She did this to her son who did nothing but show unconditional love to his family despite all of their faults. She did this to her baby who didn’t know any better but to forgive despite his father doing his best to stamp it out of him.

Ursa bundled Zuko up in her arms to walk over to the wash basin. She carefully grabbed a clean towel to dip in the water. She kept her crying quiet as she washed off his neck. She gently pried his head away from its spot in the crook of her neck.

Zuko’s eyes were swollen and his lips still quivered ever so slightly. Ursa wiped away the stray tears with the towel, her heart breaking when Zuko leaned into the motion. She bent down and kissed him on the forward.

“You are the best son in the entire world.” She cooed, smiling weakly but meaning every word she said. Zuko giggled slightly, snuggling into her once again. She took this as her cue to tuck him into bed. When she was done tucking him in, she moved to leave but a hand grabbing her wrist stopped her. She turned around to see Zuko looking at her with his baby deer dog eyes.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” She said, laying atop the covers next to him. Ursa gently played with his hair as he fell asleep. His eyes opened blearily to meet her own.

“Will you always stay?” Zuko asked. Ursa swallowed.

“Always.” She answered. Zuko smiled, letting sleep consume him. Ursa stared at the lanterns outside.

Somehow, she knew it wasn’t a promise she could keep.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Slight blood/injury (a superficial wound), child abuse


End file.
